Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
"The assaults continue today"
Hi all and thanks for all the congratulations and well-wishes. We’ll see on Thursday, and yes Chris I’ll show up not having abused any substances at all, caffiene or otherwise.
That Noam video which I eventually watched was the most informative thing I’ve seen about the current unpleasantness overseas yet. Am I the only one here who hadn’t ever seen any reference to those two Gazan civilians he mentioned were kidnapped? That makes such a difference in context. And I like how he referred to Hezzbolah’s actions as ‘irresponsible’, because that’s how they’ve seemed to me, no matter how many orphanages they fund or whatever else they do.
As to this Churchill guy, I’ve always been more comfortable with Zinn and Chomsky. For instance, what exactly does he mean by “And I will do whatever it takes.”-- is he going to go on some sort of rampage, or encourage one? It’s hard to tell the context of that quote.
And they guy’s only slightly more Native American than I am, right? If I went around referring to them as ‘my people’, would people take it as a serious show of solidarity, or as a cheap gimmick on my part?
No offense, RMJ, and I don’t mean to sound so contrarian so early in the morning. Good day to all…
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 07/25 at 05:36 AMJames: your people are my people. Churchill’s people are my people. All children should be cared for, not because they’re yours, or their skin color is similar to yours, or they pray to the same invisible man as you do, but because, as Howard Zinn says:
I wonder now how the foreign policies of the United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own. Then we could never drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, or napalm on Vietnam, or wage war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children.
In this context I do not think Churchill is wrong to do “whatever it takes” to protect his children. Because they’re your children too.Posted by Keir on from The Hague 07/25 at 06:03 AMOh, of course, of course, I really do hope that that’s how people take his statements, and would take them if I made them too. I’d just recently read too much stuff accusing him of lying about his ethnicity. And hey, even if he’s ‘guilty’ of that, I know that the rest of his statements and writing are still valid.
Except I still don’t know he meant by ‘whatever it takes’. You’re always advocating turning the cheek yourself so surely you’re not in favor of whatever frustratingly vague revolution he might be talking about.
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 07/25 at 06:41 AMGood morning James, Keir, and Mickey…
James, no offense taken. I love it when anyone expresses a view that is different from mine. It gives me an opportunity to express myself. As far as anyone’s ethnic heritage, I think it is totally irrelevant. We are all part of everyone else in my view. I am not sure that there are even different races, let alone different ethnic groups.
The “whatever it takes” part of the WC quote bothers a lot of people. To me, it might be the most important part. It is kind of like putting your money where your mouth is. It is the one part of his statement that shows the depth of his commitment and sincerity. Many of us say that the killing of children and/or civilians is wrong but too few of us are willing to do what it takes to stop it. Therein lies the flaw in the logic of WC’s critics and explains why the “peace” movement will always fail. If we all would adopt a philosophy of “anything that it takes” we would be a lot closer to achieving a peaceful world.Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 07/25 at 06:57 AMJames, we were symultyping. He who turns the other cheek will eventually have two slapped cheeks. (I learned that lesson the hard way.)
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 07/25 at 07:00 AMOh, our views aren’t so different about him, I don’t suppose, I just still don’t actually know what he means by “anything it takes”. It’s the vagueness that frustrates me more than anything. Does he have some plot that he’s not telling us about? And if he does in fact lie about his heritage, that kinda seems to hurt his credibility with a lot of people, though again, I don’t say that it invalidates the rest of writing.
Anyway, what’s Mudge’s problem with public transit? Is it so backward down south as compared to here?
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 07/25 at 07:02 AMRight now on Democracy Now is reporting on a “new” usa weapon system being used in Iraq. Here is a link to an article I wrote a while back.
http://tinyurl.com/htrlnPosted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 07/25 at 07:30 AMGood day, Expendables All.
I need to give it further consideration, but before even reading CAtLady’s comment I was already wondering about the same line in Ward’s quote… I’m not sure that ‘whatever it takes’ doesn’t bring us to ‘an eye for an eye and eventually the whole world’s blind’.
Captcha says “problem”.
Do I have to be as big an asshole as every potential aggressor? Simplistic, but as I said I need to give that further thought.
(I missed a little checking out early yesterday, so....Fisk - absolutely! I was omitting freelancers when considering MSM journalists...Canadian Bacon - I think that’s a John Candy movie? He does make me laugh with his complete idiocy...a little along Monty Python lines (which I do prefer)...Helga, what exactly is ‘cold’ in Daylesford, is it below 10C? and last but not least, Mudge - surely you jest regarding Israeli military aggression and geographical expansion??)
Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 07/25 at 08:29 AMHello Expendables. Many in Astoria still do not have power...but we are lucky on my block. Imagine if this outage took place on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. How long do you think Con Ed and the city would’ve waited to take action?
Anyway, I love to post quotes from people like Churchill, Malcolm X, and Derrick Jensen because their militancy resets the parameters. If no one got any more radical than Zinn and Chomsky, we’d be here debating whether or not Zinn and Chimsky are going too far. The existence of a far more radical Left, makes it possible for People’s History to sell like mad.
Speaking of Derrick Jensen, here’s something he said about his latest book, Endgame:
“This book originally was going to be an examination of the circumstances in which violence is an appropriate response to the ubiquitous violence upon which our culture is based....[Some things are worth dying for, some forces can be stopped only by counterforce].... Whenever I give talks in which I mention violence....the response is always the same. Mainstream environmentalists.....begin to chant “Gandhi, Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King” in an effort to keep themselves pure. The most interesting response comes from some of the other people...: survivors of domestic violence....prisoners (For three years I taught....at....a supermaximum security facility...)
“A major reason for the difference in response, I realized a long time ago, was that for none of these latter groups is violence a theoretical question to be answered abstractly....The direct experience of violence...often brings these questions closer...so the people are not facing the questions as ‘activists’....but rather as human beings-animals-struggling to survive…
“I am not convinced that [the] forgiving response is necessarily and generically better, by which I mean more conducive to the survivor’s future health and happiness, and by which I mean especially more conducive to the halting of future atrocities.”
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/25 at 08:49 AMHave been enjoying reading everything here… just popping in to recommend an incredible interview with Curtis White (author the Middle Mind-- a favorite of mine)-- from a consistently incredible radio program (I think, the very best at KPFA)-- especially interesting are his comments about “scandal-commodity” and how it promoted his book.
Also interesting: his comments about the “Sublime"-- much more.
Program Description:
Mon 7.24.06| Imagining Something Better
Hungry for more originality in what you read and see? Worried that creativity and rebellion are on the decline? In The Middle Mind, Curtis White criticizes dominant narratives for their banality and in some cases destructiveness, and calls for a revitalization of the imagination. (Encore presentation.)
http://www.againstthegrain.org/
mp3: http://tinyurl.com/z6q9qPosted by Robert B. Livingston on from San Francisco 07/25 at 08:52 AMNo power yet, Mick? Didn’t you hear what Bloomberg said? “It will get done when it’s done.” I’d like to see him say that if he was in your situation.
Posted by JOS on from Chicago 07/25 at 09:37 AMHey JOS. I’ve had power back for a few days...but not everyone around here can say that.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/25 at 10:01 AMHi Y’all!
More fretting fun....
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1191880.eceBy doing whatever it takes… Is the exact attitude keeping our ruling elite in power. Can anything be changed then except with an equal display of force?
Crud I can’t remember right this moment who I was listening to that said this. In essence it was that we should have a mass march on Washington surround the White House and inform the pResident that we can only guarantee his safety if he and his cabinet step down and surrender themselves into custody. Otherwise..all bets are off.
Captcha = small
As in how an individual feels facing each days new batch of issues…
Posted by Luna_C on from The Delta 07/25 at 10:13 AMJames, in #3 you wrote You’re always advocating turning the cheek yourself so surely you’re not in favor of whatever frustratingly vague revolution he might be talking about.
“Turning the other cheek” is something I struggle with, at least theoretically, I must admit. It is something I strive to do when personally attacked, to maintain control in out-of-control situations and prevent myself from doing something I would regret. But I would suppose that the collective outrage of people of conscience like those frequenting this blog would be sufficient, if activated, to make the revolution not so frustratingly vague, but real, now, and perhaps even bloody. Jensen definitely has a point: my radicalization would look different if I had lost someone close to violence.
I agree with Mickey that we need people always to our left so that we can constantly reevaluate our positions without “comfort”.
For the record I think revolution is necessary, no matter how frustratingly vague.
Posted by Keir on from The Hague 07/25 at 10:20 AMHey Y’all!
Just drinking some wonderful fair trade orgasmic organic coffeeeeeeeeeeeeee, and go.When extended urban blackouts occur, the paranoid backtrack begins to play and thoughts of “power downs”, set-ups and the staging moments of covert matrix shifting events. Then I draw back from the psychopathic minds of hollow men and think of the throngs of human interest undulating in the darkness.
An urban power outage can allow us all to see what is like when this great experiment is left to go “free range”.
I can understand why Mick is feeling so Kung Phooey and “self-defensish”.
“Concerto au natural”
I love these Cicada testifiers who perch upon the tree, window side and come to life in the brown wind.
The timeless cycle begins and in the same fashion the dinosaurs once enjoyed, they report the status of the way of things we remembered to forget.
There’s something going on in this Earth that has more to do with just being human.
We should all stop now and listen and begin.My super natural power for stating the obvious tells me that August if going to be a horrendous passage of days, and so does the Web Bot at urbansurvival.com, and Web Bots never lie!)
Somebody said something about Jenson or Chomsky or Jesus and it reminded me of the video:
”Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land”
http://tinyurl.com/ke3yvWhen faced with the cowed and “Ziocentric” corporate media portrayal of the currently ferocious water and land grab mass murder in Lebanon, it is good to get a little refresher about the methods and vectoring skills of today’s modern thought conductors.
Within the culture of entitlement that the North American bubble provides, all of these brutal genocides immolating people and leaving them smeared like grotesque jelly donut butcher shop parodies of themselves all over their neighbourhoods, just melts into one purposeful sound bite.
War is Peace.
The victim is the predator,
And no matter how hard Oprah tries, y’all won’t stop spending your way into debt with credit.
”It’s the Bling, Dr. Phil, It’s the Bling!”You are collapsed in a sugar coma with you pants around your ankles while your house burns down around you.
I would love to learn Kung Fu.Posted by Youngfox on from Canaduh 07/25 at 10:25 AMHey Youngfox. Web bot is awesome! I used to listen to that guy interviewed on Mysteries of the Mind before he went off the air.
Wanted to plug my favourite blog, besides Mickey’s. ;)
Run by the author Jeff Wells. He regularly delves into some deep deep areas. A true bathysphere blog.
Peace, Off to see Dr Toothy…Posted by Luna_C on from The Delta 07/25 at 10:32 AMHey L.C.
I do enjoy Well’s blog - in fact I linked his latest post.
He even gave me a blog link on his wonderful site and as a shiftless, futile and lowbrow Internet bastard, I was as thrilled as a kitten in fish.Posted by Youngfox on from Canaduh 07/25 at 10:41 AMWhy fix the broken cart when you can re-invent the wheel?
"It is time for a new Middle East,” she said. “It is time to say to those that don’t want a different kind of Middle East that we will prevail. They will not." -Condolizzard
Different, as in a mutual agreement to allow people to live as they are in their generational homes? Methinks not.
Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 07/25 at 12:07 PMHello Robert, Luna, Keir, and Youngfox.
Question. If someone claims to advocate non-violence but does not advocate for the complete re-imagining of our current society, isn’t that the same as advocating violence? For if the structures remain in place and unchallenged, violence will continue to be as “normal” as, say, TV and SUVs. Just a thought…
Empress: I think Condi’s been reading this.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/25 at 12:23 PMthat Churchill quote reminded me of there is a tribe in Kenya eliminated clan warfare from their region by posing one question to anyone who wanted to join them: “If my relatives were to kill your relatives would you still work with me for peace?” and if you can´t say yes you don´t join the tribe.
I expect you´re all keeping well. I´m living in a tent cause it´s pretty fetid indoors at moment, I don´t know why I wasn´t doing this before. I notice there´s a lot of reading going on here, I´m not doing that much cause I´ve got a busy run of concerts on though am thoroughly enjoying The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra, it´s about similarities between the odd turn physics took in the last century and eastern mysticism (more about it here http://tinyurl.com/oc9dr).Posted by owen on from barcelona 07/25 at 01:06 PMHi Owen, Robert, Youngfox, Amelopsis…
Mickey #9...That is a great explanation by Jensen about the differences between those who want no violence and those who want to solve the problem by any means necessary. I think that that explanation brings a lot of clarity to the topic.
Keir #14...The “turning the other cheek” issue is similar. After one has turned the other cheek countless times, only to have it slapped again, the lesson is learned.
Luna #13...Agreed. Doing whatever it takes has kept our ruling elite in power, proves the point. They are willing, we are not. When we are willing to do whatever it takes, they will be out of power and there will be peace.
James #6...It is the vagueness of the statement that makes it so important. It leaves room for the creativity and resourcefulness of the reader. Also, there are the obvious legal type of inhibitions when making any statement that encourages an action.Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 07/25 at 02:06 PMMore war crimes:
Posted by JOS on from Chicago 07/25 at 02:33 PMHi all!
Empress, MZ, RMJ and all, I am dead serious when I say give the Israelis all they conquered up to 1973 and make the Arabs leave ‘em alone for good and ever. I care very much that some justice is done for the first-ever mechanized, organized, and planned genocide’s victims, survivors, and descendants.
RMJ, I’d say give the Jews the whole of Germany in a heartbeat. Hustle the Germans off to France, where their cousins who speak Italian with a German accent and eat Italian food with German sauces have lived high off the cochon for waaay too long. Personally, I think the entire German GDP should be sent to Israel every year in the form of cash benefits from now until there ain’t a Germany any more, and then the successor state keeps the payments up until there ain’t money anymore.
Native Americans, Armenians, and Kurds, the other victims of outsider-inficted genocides, should get generous cash settlements, too. Let’s say, turn Citicorp over to the Native Americans...Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, over to the Armenians...and how about Iraq and its oilfields over to the Kurds to govern and exploit? Seems fair enough to me.
CatLady, from last night: I am thrilled to bits that you’re getting a good gig!! As to moving back...I have two dogs to consider, and they’re not gonna be happy in anything I could “afford” there. It’s hot here, and public transportation isn’t in any way convenient, but in some metaphysical way I belong here. My bones are of this place. I loved NYC with a roaring, furious passion! I loved my life there. I loved the way everything fit me. But in the end, one usually comes home to die. I might not be planning to die soon, but the Universe is keeping me here for SOMEthing.
So come visit, see if you think Austin’s as bad as I say it is.
MZ, when are you coming to Texas to set Mom up on her new ‘puter? A visit could be arranged somehow, I feel sure.
Expendable Nation, I salute you each and all with the greatest affection and admiration.
Posted by Mudge on from Austin, Texas 07/25 at 02:38 PMOh Mudge - I just don’t know where to start with all the ways in which I disagree with your support of Israel, but I’ll give it a go anyway:
Why should the nation be allowed to expand illegally, forcibly evicting people from their homes in order to claim their land as their own? Why should Israel not be forced to abide by the UN’s allotment to which everyone agreed?
Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 07/25 at 03:04 PMRe the ‘Indian question’: Norman Finkelstein once made this interesting point: what would Americans think if Germans built a museum dedicated to the ‘Near Elimination of the American Indian’ - in the centre of Berlin. He was referring to the Holocaust Museum in DC of course.
Thanks for the post, Mickey - and ‘hi’ to James, Keir, Rosemarie, Amelopsis (’cold’ in Daylesford is anywhere between 46 and 56F, Robert B. Livingston, JOS, Luna_C, Youngfox, Owen and MUDGE (last but not least on this comment thread).Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 07/25 at 03:49 PMMudge Mudge Mudge… oh, for one thing, remember I’m not getting a livable gig yet. Thursday I must dazzle them with my personality and looks, then assuming that goes well, a second round and another test. Then temp with them for a few weeks, then full-time. But it does look promising so far.
And since MZ and I live so close to where we were born, let’s hope that doesn’t mean that death is too near on the horizon. And as for you, not to put myself down, but I’m unclear how I can make a living here, but someone of you sophisticated background would fear himself to be unable to. Ah well.
As to your feelings about Isreal’s current campaign of carnage… um, okay. But when my mom’s second cousin’s, and, well actually I lose track of my dozens of German relatives-- but when they all get displaced under the plan set about by you and Rosemarie, can they come and live with you in Texas? They couldn’t stand the heat, no, but I don’t think that France would suit them either.
And as to Churchill’s still frutratingly vague, to me, calls for some sort of extreme action-- sorry, but the vagueness rings of cop-out to me. That’s probably not the case, but it just seems to beg caricature. As if I can see an Onion headline in his future: “Area academic of dubious heritage finally gets around to leading bitter scholars in his violent campaign against… something; sustains 100% casualties.”
Ehhh… sorry, that’s probably not fair, but the most relevant thing here today feels like what Luna said in #13 about surrounding the White House. And I just doubt that Ward can deliver on that. Sorry, maybe I’m just trying to out-cynic Husband dear, I don’t know.
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 07/25 at 04:04 PMHello again, Expendables.
Mudge: It will have to suffice for me to say I couldn’t possibly disagree more with your ideas relating to Israel (as stated above and yesterday). But, as captcha suggests, I’m sure you “expected” that.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/25 at 05:01 PMAmerica the Beautiful:
http://tinyurl.com/rq2l9Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/25 at 05:53 PMMickey # 28...that explains a lot. That is why things are the way they are. The problem is not the government. The problem is us.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 07/25 at 06:06 PMYesterday evening I watched a documentary in which two young girls living in Hebron were interviewed simply about everyday events in their neighbourhoods. One girl was Palestinian and her family and everyone she knew on her busy market street had lived in the neighbourhood for generations. The other girl was Israeli and the daughter of settlers who’d moved to the are a few years previous.
They were interviewed before and after the second Intifadah.
By the ‘after’ interviews, the Palestinian girl’s entire neighbourhood was transformed into a war zone, they could not leave their home or walk on the main street, every door was painted with a Star of David and unless their doorway & windows were locked and protected by bars, their home would be vandalised by settlers (and was when the door was left unlatched for 10 minutes). Their neighbourhood was deserted as everyone who could leave, did so after about a year or two of steady killings, curfews and harrassment.At that point the Israeli girls response to the question of what she thought of her counterpart’s life over the same few years was that she did not consider her at all. She’s not her equal. She and her people need to understand that the Israelis are a more worthy people who belong in Hebron more than they do, that they (Israelis) are their betters and they should just go away...ask themselves why they bother living anymore.
So...who wants “some” more of that!?
Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 07/25 at 08:19 PMAnyway, if I do get hired for this new job, it’ll most likely be like this:
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 07/25 at 09:57 PMEmpress, RMJ, MZ: What makes one group’s suffering more valuable than another’s? No one has ever dealt with this question that I pose so often. The sufferings of the Kurds deserve...? The sufferings of the Native Americans deserve...? And if there are differences in your responses for the Jews, why are those differences there? Does anyone contend there is a “morally pure” or “guiltless” government anywhere, still less the Middle East or whatever vogue term one uses for that area?
There are no Palestinians. That group was invented after a bunch of Jordanians didn’t want to leave their generations-held homes after Israel grabbed them by force. I have said before that I really don’t care much about that part of the world and its manifold miseries; still true today; but the relentlessness of the anti-Israeli sentiment gets up my nose. Do y’all honestly not see that, were this same degree of outrage and anger directed against Ward Churchill or the Diego Garcians [Diegois? Garcianiks?] or East Timorese, the fulminations would steam formth?
Nation-states suffer no harm from anger directed at them, really. It’s the anti-ISRAELI sentiment I deplore. These are people whose ene,ies surround them, as their enemies always have; their national response is paranoia. How surprising. When the neighbors threaten to kill you for the crime of being you, you’d be paranoid too.
Your example, Empress, of an Israeli girl who said hateful things about “Palestinians,” is a prime example of what I deplore. The sweet little Arab girl and the vengeful Jewish girl...how conveniently selected an example, and how representative of the apparently unseen and certainly unacknowledged prejudice of all concerned in making and watching the aforementioned documentary.
No one in the Israel-vs-Arabs conflict is in any way right. They’re all pigheaded, vicious bastards with no regard for what SHOULD matter: the rights of humans to live out their lives in the most peaceful way they possibly can manage. Nothing will change that, I fear, and I don’t hope for a solution to this problem while I’m alive.
I’ve heard y’all out, I’ve had my say, and since not one bit of this will do one single solitary practical thing on the ground where the conflict is taking place, I say we drop it. As I’m in the minority, I expect I’ll see a lot more posts that condemn Israel, in spite of my expressed distaste for the prejudice this demonstrates; I doubt I’ll bother to comment on it again for that reason. One can’t argue with prejudices, they simply are. Mine are pro-Israeli and anti-Arab.
CatLady: I assume you’ll wow ‘em, and they’ll hire you. I have confidence in your abilities.
“...but when they all get displaced under the plan set about by you and Rosemarie, can they come and live with you in Texas?” Hell no! We have enough hatred here in “Murrica’s Craowen Jeeewl” without adding a buncha damn Nazi Krauts. (I feel it incumbent on me to remind all that I do mean this in jest.)
Posted by Mudge on from Austin, Texas 07/26 at 12:46 AM
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